The Internet has evolved from a convenient additional means of communications to an essential communication tool. In this regard, a growing segment of the Internet relates to Internet telephony which provides a number of advantages over conventional circuit-switched network controlled by a separate signaling network. For one thing, parties are allowed to more easily select and use encoding and other data compression techniques that are most appropriate for their quality needs. Parties may, for example, decide that for international calls, they would trade lower cost for full toll quality, while a reporter calling in her story to a radio station may go for full FM quality with little regard for price. Even without quality degradation, 5.3 kb/s (G.723.1) to 8 kb/s (G.729) are sufficient to support close to toll quality as opposed to 64 kb/s for conventional landline telephone networks. This flexibility also has the advantage that during severe network overload, e.g., after a natural catastrophe, telephone customers can still communicate at about 3 kb/s, thus increasing network capacity twenty-fold.
Along with the growth of Internet telephony, there has been a growth in wireless telephony and wireless internet access. Such technologies have liberated millions of users by providing voice and data communications capabilities which are no longer tethered to the office desktop or home. These services have evolved from simple voice telephone connections, to messaging services, pushed content, wireless internet access and the like. Such services are known as second generation (2G), extended second generation (2.5G) and third generation (3G) wireless services, depending on the nature and sophistication of the service being offered. As wireless technologies evolve, various standards have been proposed for such devices.
One such protocol is the Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP) which is an open specification that offers a standard method to access Internet based content and services from wireless devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). The WAP model attempts to provides an interface which is similar to the traditional desktop Internet but formats content in a way that is suitable for the smaller and more limited displays generally available in portable devices. Portable WAP devices generally include micro-browser software which provides for content display and network navigation functionality. To perform this functionality, WAP content is written in a markup language called WML (Wireless Markup Language). An extension of WML, WMLScript, further enables client side intelligence. The WAP protocol is intended to be both network and operating system independent.
A feature of current wireless telephony systems is the provision for exchanging short text messages. For example, the Short Message Standard (SMS) is an addition to the GSM Standard that enables text messages of up to 160 characters on GSM networks and 190 characters on some other networks to be sent between mobile phones. SMS has been gaining popularity because of its low cost and quick message transfer. In addition to messaging between mobile phones, SMS can be incorporated into applications to alert users of events, such as a new email arriving or a stock share price movement. SMS messages are transferred between mobile phones via a Short Message Service Center (SMSC). The SMSC is software that resides in the operators network and manages the processes including queuing the messages, billing the sender and returning receipts if necessary.
In addition, Bluetooth is an open standard for two-way, short-wave radio communications between different devices, such as mobile phones, palmtops, portable PCs and printers. The Bluetooth protocol enables information between such devices to be synchronized. For example, diary information held on a PDA can be updated automatically when within range of a Bluetooth-enabled PC.
While there are numerous protocols for various wireless features, there remains a need to integrate such protocols in a network telephony appliance or system which can readily integrate the features of the Internet with those features of conventional and wireless telephony systems.